


It Feels Oddly Good To Hurt

by TheStoryFiend



Category: Stitchers (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Character, F/F, Fluff, Pre-Slash, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, camille is so bi, my cute children being cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 19:09:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6622741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStoryFiend/pseuds/TheStoryFiend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Kirsten's door was cracked open, and through the gap Camille saw her laying on her back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, earbuds in her ears. Camille paused a moment, considering the expression on her roommate’s face. Kirsten, who just a few months ago was as inscrutable as a rocky cliff, looked vulnerable. Sad."</p>
<p>Just two roommates stealing each other's body washes and being Really Gay. This fandom needs more femslash, so I'm doing my duty ^.^</p>
<p>Title inspired by "She" by Dodie Clark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Camille

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> camille is my bi wife ^.^ also emotional!kirsten is my fave
> 
> (We're just going to pretend that camus doesn't exist here... ^.^)

The most ironic part of the whole damn situation was that working out was supposed to make her feel better, not worse.

 

Camille Engelson stood under the hot jets of the shower, trying to wash away the crawling-skin feeling she got while flirting with Liam.

 

“I'm keeping Kirsten safe, I'm keeping Kirsten safe,” she muttered to herself over and over. It had become her new mantra. Taking yet another deep calming breath (though none of the previous ones had done much to calm her), she reached for Kirsten's body wash instead of her own. For some reason she didn't want to think too hard about, its scent made her feel safe and comforted.

 

After suddenly realizing that the longer she stood under the hot water, the higher the water bill would be for the month, Camille got out and got dressed in her pajamas. In the middle of pulling on her top, she paused, realizing there was something wrong with it. It was too soft, too dark, too stretchy. She pulled it back off and took another look.

 

“Hmmm,” she said, holding it in her hands. It wasn't the pajama top she had pulled out of her dresser an hour ago. Instead, it was one of Kirsten's tee-shirts, one that Camille stole sometimes because it was so comfortable. Slowly, Camille pulled it over her head and walked out of the bathroom, heading toward Kirsten's room, a thoughtful expression on her face.

 

Kirsten's door was cracked open, and through the gap Camille saw her laying on her back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, earbuds in her ears. Camille paused a moment, considering the expression on her roommate’s face. Kirsten, who just a few months ago was as inscrutable as a rocky cliff, looked vulnerable. Sad.

 

Camille pushed the door open and slipped in. Kirsten didn’t stir. As she got closer to the bed, Camille heard the music coming from her earbuds. She brushed her hand against Kirsten’s shoulder.

 

“Hey, there, roomie,” Camille said. Kirsten’s eyes flicked toward her, and she took her earbuds out of her ears and sat up.

 

“You okay?” Kirsten asked Camille.

 

“Yeah, fine, totally,” Camille replied with her usual charming smile. “Just, I was wondering how my favorite tee-shirt of yours ended up in the bathroom when I wasn’t looking.” Kirsten looked away, blushing a bit. Man, Camille _loved_ the new Kirsten sometimes. She was so cute when she blushed.

 

“You’ve been looking a bit preoccupied lately, and I know that you like that tee-shirt, and… I know it’s kind of silly, but…” Kirsten looked determinedly down at the bedspread, hands clenching. She cleared her throat and looked up at Camille.

 

“I don’t know my way around emotions still, but I do know that I feel better when you feel better. And I’ve been worried and distracted about my dad, so I thought if I could help you, I could help both of us. So, that’s that.” Once again, her gaze fell to the bedspread.

 

Camille didn’t know what to say. She stretched her hand out to brush Kirsten’s shoulder again and let her hand fall to her side.

 

“Thank you,” she said softly, smiling at the blond girl. Kirsten gave a little shrug, but Camille could see her lips twitch into a smile.

 

“Right, well, I’m going to go to bed,” Camille said.

 

“Okay,” Kirsten said, looking up at her again. Something about her gaze made the atmosphere of the room heavy, like there was something here that could happen, but that Camille couldn’t quite name. Brushing the feeling off, Camille left the room, closing the door softly after her and padding across the hall to her own room.

 

After she had turned off the lights and pulled the covers over her, Camille laid in the dark, mulling over the heavy feeling she had had. When it finally occurred to her what it was, it hit like a punch in the gut. It was the feeling she had gotten around Dirk’s sister.

 

Damn, she had been a blond, too. Damn, damn, damn.

  
Camille rolled over with a groan and resigned herself to a sleepless night.


	2. Kirsten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Camille, sassy even when sleep deprived, raised an eyebrow."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in one day??? Insane
> 
> Kirsten is oblivious af and Camille is, as usual, Super Gay
> 
> My children share a bed! yessssssss

Kirsten had been staring at the ceiling for at least an hour.

At first, after she had recovered from her temporal dysplasia, Kirsten had relished the feeling of time passing, of knowing what it was like to be ordinary, to feel like everything was moving too fast when she was around her friends and like every minute was an hour when waiting for the cable company to give her a live representative (on second thought, she didn’t relish that. Are there really only three representatives for the cable company in the _entire fucking country jesus christ_ ), but now she was tired and confused and wished that time would melt into itself like it used to. She rolled over to look at the clock, which read 3:30 AM.

“Traitor,” she grumbled at it with a frown. Resigning herself to the fact that she wasn’t going to fall back to sleep, she grabbed her phone and earbuds and chose a song at random, putting the volume up so high it teetered on the edge of painful, hoping the swirling mix of music and pain would drive her tangled thoughts out of her head. It was no good. Images of her father and equations and clues tacked together on walls with string clouded her mind. Eventually she admitted defeat and turned off the music, opting instead to stumble half-blindly to the kitchen to make herself some herbal tea.

The cloudy sky glowed orange from the lights in the city as she gazed out the window, waiting for the kettle to boil. A shuffling noise came from behind her. She turned to see Camille walking into the kitchen behind her.

“Hi,” Kirsten whispered.

Camille, sassy even when sleep deprived, raised an eyebrow.

“Why are you being so quiet?” she whispered exaggeratedly. “We are the only people in the house.”

“I know,” Kirsten replied in a slightly more normal decibel. “But it's the middle of the night, and it doesn't seem right to talk loudly.”

“Wow, okay, this whole no temporal dysplasia thing has really thrown you for a loop,” Camille noted, eyebrows raised even higher. “Old Kirsten never would have cared about the appropriate volume of voice for the time of day.”

Kirsten shrugged.

“Old Kirsten wouldn't have cared about a lot of things,” she said. “She wouldn't have brought you that shirt.”

Kirsten couldn't quite see everything in the dim light filtering into the kitchen through the window, but she thought she could see Camille's cheeks color. While she was pondering what that could mean, the kettle began to whistle.

“Do you want some tea?” Kirsten asked Camille as she got her mug from the cabinet.

“No, but I'll take some hot chocolate,” she said, moving over to get herself a mug. Their arms brushed momentarily and Kirsten could swear she heard Camille's breath catch.

“Are you all right?” she asked Camille, concerned and confused in equal measures. Camille flapped a hand in the air in dismissal.

“I'm fine,” she reassured her, moving swiftly across the kitchen to where the tin of hot cocoa was kept. Kirsten made her tea and sipped it consideringly while Camille made her hot chocolate.

“Since neither of us seem to be getting any sleep, do you want to come over to my room and watch Netflix while we drink these?” Kirsten offered, raising her mug slightly.

“Oh, that's right! We were going to watch House of Cards together!” Camille exclaimed.

Kirsten grinned.

“Let's go,” she said.

Camille settled herself on Kirsten's bed while Kirsten grabbed her laptop and brought it over. She pressed up close to Camille, balancing the laptop between them. She couldn't help but notice that Camille smelled like sleep and chocolate, but her usual scent of jasmine body wash wasn't there. Maybe she had run out and was using Kirsten's instead. Oddly, Kirsten found that she missed it.

They only lasted one episode until their eyelids began to droop. Kirsten shut the laptop and Camille moved to leave the bed.

“No, don't… I mean, you don't have to go. You can sleep here for the rest of the night, if you want,” Kirsten told her, grabbing her hand to keep her from leaving. Camille relented.

“All right, I'll stay,” she said, settling back into the bed beside Kirsten. She turned out the lights and pulled up the covers and they held themselves awkwardly away from each other. Kirsten wondered at the tension between them and decided to blame it on the stress they both were feeling. Work was tough on everyone, she decided, snuggling into the pillow and drifting off.

***

When Kirsten woke up, Camille was already gone. She could hear her in the kitchen making breakfast. Kirsten rubbed at her gritty eyes and decided what she needed was a quick shower to wake herself up.

She set the shower a bit colder than usual and hopped in, moving quickly under the cold water. When she went to reach for the body wash, though, she realized that Camille's body wash was still there. It was still too early for her to think about why Camille would have used her body wash when she had her own, so Kirsten, deciding that she missed the scent of jasmine, reached for Camille's bottle instead.


End file.
